Monday, October 5, 2009

What a shame, eh?

ConHome has a rather downbeat posting about the Czech President that quotes the Financial Times. "Vaclav Klaus may not save Britain from Lisbon after all". Well, no. In the first place, it might be a good idea to get the situation right.

The fate of the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty lies with the Czech Constitutional Court, whither it had been returne by a group of Czech Senators. The Court will decide within the next six months on whether the treaty is compatible with the Czech Constitution. If, as expected, they will say yes, President Klaus will find himself in a difficult position: by not signing he will be going against the will of both Houses of the Czech Parliament and the Constitutional Court. No president in a democracy can hold that position for very long. He will most probably sign.

The Boss on EURef has also written about this, referring to the Guardian and the BBC.

We do not know what was in the letter the Conservative Party appears to have sent him but his opinion of the British political process does not seem to be very high. Presumably, it is not terribly high when he thinks about the British Conservative Party.

Vaclav Klaus, the Eurosceptic Czech president who had indicated he would delay ratifying the treaty until after the British general election, indicated he might change his mind. "There will never be another referendum in Europe," he told the BBC after the Irish vote. "The people of Britain should have been doing something much earlier and not just now, too late, saying something and waiting for my decision."

Well, indeed. Above all, why should President Klaus go out of his way to save the Conservative Party's credibility?

Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers' Alliance is running around the Conservative Party Conference getting people to sign a postcard to President Klaus, pleading with him to save Britain, the Conservative Party and David Cameron. Some have signed, others like Boris Johnson, have refused. (Here is a picture of Douglas Carswell signing.)

Too little, too late. We suggested a campaign of this kind almost four months ago but the TPA was too busy telling the world that nobody had thought of the European issue and its problems until they came on the scene. My personal attempt to interest them in the idea of writing to President Klaus were met with charming and dismissive smiles.

Now that President Klaus has made it clear that he is not that interested in saving people who cannot save themselves, at least, not at the expense of a possible impeachment, that delightful looking postcard will do very little beyond getting media time for the TPA.

How demeaning, how shameful, ultimately how sad, that we - a once-proud once-independent nation - are scratching around hoping against hope that some foreigner - however honourable and honoured - will do something - anything! - to save us from surrendering our birthright, our freedom, our democracy, our very nationhood.